The Lawman's Secret Son

by Lorraine Beatty

  Kids?

  Carolina chuckled. That sounded about right, given that goats were similarly stubborn and inclined to get themselves into loads of mischief.

  “I’m really excited about one of our newest projects,” Katie gushed as they rounded the corner of the barn. “It’s already proving to be one of the most popular programs we’ve ever had here on the ranch.”

  Carolina pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and checked the time, thinking that, although she hated to cut the visit short, she should probably suggest returning to the office so she could be waiting there to speak to Bea when the director returned from her lunch.

  As much as she was enjoying the tour of the ranch, and especially watching Matty interact with the animals, it was more imperative than ever that she speak to the ranch’s director as soon as possible. She’d had no idea of the length and breadth of the boys ranch activities, and now that she knew more about it, she realized just how important her information was.

  It broke her heart that she was the bearer of bad news that could possibly affect the ranch’s future. Hopefully not, but the sooner they got the information, the better. Her great-uncle Morton, whom the lawyer representing the ranch was seeking, had recently died of a heart attack.

  A moment’s grief swirled through her and she swallowed hard. She’d been especially close to her great-uncle, and his passing had been hard on her. Gritting her teeth, she stared at her boots as she mentally herded her emotions into the deepest corner of her heart and clamped them down with the strength of her will.

  “Katie, I should probably—”

  Blinking back tears, she looked up to find a man’s dark eyes on hers. Their eyes met and locked, surprise and shock registering within his deep stare.

  She gasped, her entire body stiffening like a slab of concrete.

  He swallowed hard enough to make his Adam’s apple bob. Clearly he was every bit as stunned as she was.

  Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Wyatt Harrow.

  The man who’d won her heart and then shattered it into a million pieces.

  No—that wasn’t fair to him. She couldn’t honestly place the blame at his door for what had happened. Not when she was the one at fault—for everything.

  For not knowing better than to trust her own heart. For not having the strength to stay in control of her emotions enough not to surrender to the physical need to find comfort for their mutual grief. For not being brave enough to tell Wyatt the truth about Matty, even if she’d believed—and still believed—that it was in his best interest not to know.

  She’d been the one to abruptly end their relationship, not Wyatt. She’d literally walked away from him, and from Haven, even though her heart had been breaking into smaller and smaller pieces with every step she took, for every mile of distance she put between them.

  His presence was like a slap on the face.

  Wyatt was here. He’d seen her. There was no turning away now. Nowhere to run or hide from the truth.

  She felt as if she were drowning. She coaxed herself to breathe through the crashing waves of reality, but the air seemed to freeze in her lungs as she watched him slowly recover from his own shock.

  Surrounded by a herd of goats and a motley flock of boys displaying varying degrees of interest in what he was doing, Wyatt was clearly in the middle of some kind of veterinary demonstration. He had a syringe in one hand and a goat trapped between his muscular legs.

  He was every bit as handsome and rugged as she remembered, from the tip of his black Stetson to the toes of his tan cowboy boots. Jet-black hair, eyes the color of dark chocolate, powerful biceps, broad shoulders sloping to a cowboy’s trim waist. A well-worn T-shirt that might once have been red, a fleece-lined denim jacket and tattered jeans that spoke of his hard manual labor as a large-animal veterinarian.

  The only thing that had changed from the last time she had seen him, from the man she had left three years ago, were the lines of strain on his face and the pure icy coldness of his gaze. Her heart clenched as she remembered how his eyes used to warm when he looked at her, when his whole countenance lit up whenever she was around.

  But not now.

  He pulled his hat down to shadow his thoughts, but he couldn’t hide the frown that curved his lips into a downward arch.

  What was Wyatt doing here?

  Not just here at the boys ranch. That much was fairly evident.

  But why was he still in Haven?

  Carolina quivered from the adrenaline still coursing through her. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might run into him. She had been so certain he would be long gone from town by now, or else she would never have even considered returning—letter or no letter.

  That was the whole point, wasn’t it? Why she’d left in the first place? To give Wyatt his freedom?

  Wyatt stood to his full height, and Carolina’s breath snagged in her throat. She’d hoped that if she ever saw him again she would feel nothing, that she would have moved beyond the long nights and emotions born of grief and loneliness.

  Instead, nothing had changed, except perhaps that her feelings had grown stronger over time. It was as if every nerve in her body was attuned to his.

  The brown-speckled goat Wyatt had been working on bleated and bolted away, but he didn’t appear to notice. His posture was stiff and intimidating as he stared back at her, tight jawed and frowning.

  “Carolina.” His usually rich baritone emerged low and gritty.

  “Mama?” Matty squeezed her hand.

  She’d been so shocked by Wyatt’s sudden appearance that she’d momentarily forgotten Matty was at her side.

  Wyatt’s gaze shifted to Matty and then back up to her again, his eyes widening in surprise.

  Now the electricity intensified, zapping back and forth like lightning between them. Her pulse ratcheted. Her heart hammered. Her worst fear, realized.

  Matty.

  Oh, precious Lord, please help me.

  Even as she prayed for relief, she knew there was no way out of this. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t intended to reveal this secret. Not to anyone, but most especially not to Wyatt.

  Ever.

  The whole reason she’d left Haven was to allow Wyatt to pursue the life he’d dreamed of. Ever since she’d known him, he’d spoken about his desire to help the poor and destitute in foreign countries learn how to raise animals. He wanted to provide them with a trade through which they could work themselves out of a poverty-stricken existence.

  It was a noble goal, the dream of his heart, and if she had stayed, she would have ruined it for him. His parents had been foreign diplomats who’d died in an explosion, and Wyatt had never quite gotten over the loss, even if it made him more determined than ever to help those less fortunate than him. She’d known him well enough to know there was no way he would ever consider bringing a wife and child with him to a third-world country where they might be in danger.

  Carolina had known and understood this, and she’d loved him enough to let him go. That was why she’d left Haven so suddenly when she’d discovered she was pregnant with Matty. Everything she’d been through since then—every struggle, every trial she’d endured, every night spent crying in her pillow, had been for Wyatt’s sake.

  Because if he’d known she was pregnant, he would have had no choice but to stay with her in Haven. He wasn’t the kind of man who would walk away from his responsibilities. He would have given up all of his personal hopes and dreams for the sake of his son. She had no doubt whatsoever that he was the guy who would do the right thing by her and by Matty. He would have asked her to marry him.

  But she’d been in love with him, and the right thing wasn’t good enough for her—or for Matty. Their lives couldn’t be built on one night’s mist
ake.

  If she’d believed Wyatt was in love with her, that would have been one thing. But before the night Matty was conceived they’d only been casually dating, and the night they’d shared had been born of sorrow, not joy. A marriage and family based only on a man’s sense of decency and not true love? Her heart couldn’t take it.

  So she’d left.

  And now she was back, only to discover Wyatt had never left at all. Why wasn’t he in Uganda or deep in the Amazon jungle somewhere?

  Had her sacrifice been for nothing?

  “Mama?” Matty said again, yanking her arm more intently this time. “Mama. Mama.”

  She scooped him into her arms and gently patted his back, reassuring herself as much as him. Her fight-or-flight instinct was working overtime, and it was all she could do to stand firm and not flee.

  But what good would it do her to turn away now? Wyatt had already caught sight of Matty. He was watching the toddler through narrowed eyes and pressed lips as the boy tangled his fingers into Carolina’s hair.

  “You’re a mama?” Wyatt asked, and for one confused moment, no longer than a blink of an eye, Carolina thought...hoped...prayed that he wouldn’t comprehend what that meant. That he wouldn’t realize the truth about those identical chocolate-brown eyes that were literally staring right back at him, among the many features that mirrored his own.

  “I—how could you?” he stammered, picking off his hat and threading his fingers through his hair.

  Carolina cringed, waiting for him to come loose at the seams. How could he not? She wouldn’t blame him. He had every right to be furious.

  She held her breath, waiting for the explosion she knew was coming.

  But when he spoke, it was deep, and hushed, and as hard and cold as steel.

  “Tell me the truth, Carolina, for once in your life. This boy—is he my son?”

  * * *

  Wyatt’s breath felt like icicles in his lungs, poking and puncturing his chest with each ragged gasp.

  That boy, the animated, dark-haired, dark-eyed child clinging to Carolina’s neck, was his son.

  For the very first few seconds after he’d realized Carolina wasn’t alone, that she had her toddler with her, there had been a flash of confusion—of anger, of envy—that she had been able to move on with her life so quickly after abandoning him. It had taken him months to recover enough to go on with his daily life without thinking of her with every heartbeat, and there were still days—and nights—he found difficulty putting the past behind him.

  And she already had a husband and a toddler? She must have met the guy right after—

  His gaze had dropped to her left hand, but her ring finger was bare. So she wasn’t married, then.

  Yet there was a child.

  And then, in an instant, it all came together.

  The moment he looked into the child’s eyes, Wyatt knew, with the same certainty that he recognized the wild, unsteady rhythm of his heart beating in his chest, that the little boy was his son.

  His child.

  He didn’t have to count back the months or measure the years. Anyone with eyes could see the resemblance.

  The boy could have stepped right out of a photograph of Wyatt at that age, from the stubborn cowlick in his black hair right down to the curve of his dimples when he smiled. Wyatt now covered his dimples with a few days’ growth of beard, but they were there. Just like this boy’s.

  “What’s his name?” he ground out, barely able to find his voice.

  “Matty,” Carolina answered shakily.

  Matty was his son.

  His thoughts were coming quick and choppy, echoing over and over in his mind, each time stronger and with increasing clarity.

  Matty was his own flesh and blood, created out of his love for Carolina. They’d done everything backward, to be sure, but even before Matty had been conceived, Wyatt had had every intention of asking Carolina to marry him, had been ready to make a lifetime commitment to her.

  Obviously Carolina hadn’t felt the same way about him, or else she never would have left him.

  Left. Knowing she was keeping him from his son.

  Where was the love in that?

  The little boy staring back at him with wide, curious brown eyes should have had the benefit of his father’s love and attention from the very day he was born.

  Already those emotions were welling in Wyatt’s heart. One second ago he’d been a single man. Now he was a daddy.

  The whole scenario was wrong on so many levels. He should have been there when Matty was born. When he took his first steps. Said his first word. Wyatt would have showered Matty with love and attention. He and Matty had both been cheated out of time together.

  Years.

  For a reason Wyatt couldn’t begin to comprehend, Carolina had willingly chosen to live as a single mother, without so much as asking him for financial support, much less anything emotional.

  His gut fisted as another thought occurred to him.

  Was there another man in the picture now? The fact that Carolina wasn’t wearing a wedding band didn’t necessarily mean anything. The woman he’d thought he’d known would never live with another man without being married to him, but what did he really know about her?

  She had proven him wrong in every way that mattered.

  Had Wyatt been replaced before he’d ever even had the opportunity to be a dad to his son? The idea of someone else taking on his role of father to Matty made him sick.

  It was too much information to process, too many emotions to contain all at once.

  Bewilderment, uncertainty, grief, pain, fury—yet at the same time an affection and warmth unlike any he’d ever known. He had no idea where the tender feelings for Matty came from. They were just there.

  He switched his gaze to Carolina. She looked stricken, as well she might.

  How dare she keep all knowledge of his son from him for all this time?

  And why had she come back now?

  He guessed the boy had to be around two years of age. Had Carolina suddenly grown a conscience and decided Wyatt needed to know about the boy? It didn’t seem likely, especially since Carolina appeared completely shocked to have encountered him the way she had. She certainly hadn’t been seeking him out.

  There were so many questions he wanted answered, so much confusion rolling through his mind and heart that he couldn’t seem to form the words to voice a single one of them. He wanted to grill and interrogate Carolina on every aspect of Matty’s life, but he didn’t know where to begin.

  And really, what did it matter anyway?

  The fact was, three years ago Carolina had left him high and dry with no notice and no explanation, and now, years later, she had suddenly returned with their son in her arms.

  He couldn’t imagine any conceivable excuse or reasonable explanation that he would actually accept as a legitimate reason why she hadn’t bothered to tell him about his child. There was simply nothing she could say to talk her way out of the conversation they were about to have.

  “W-Wyatt?” Seventeen-year-old Johnny Drake touched his shoulder and tentatively broke into his thoughts. The teenager, whom Wyatt was personally mentoring, was reed thin, with floppy, curly brown hair and clothes that always looked like they were a size too large for him. “D-did you want me to c-catch the g-g-goat for you?”

  In the shock of finding out he had a son, Wyatt had completely forgotten he was in the middle of teaching a class to a rowdy group of boys who were all gazing at him with wide-eyed curiosity and far more attention than they’d been giving him when he’d been explaining how to inoculate a goat.

  “Yeah, W-W-Wyatt,” said Christopher Harrington, a resentful young man who thought he was better than the others because he came from a wealthy home. Christopher hadn’t yet learn
ed the hard truth that the boys were all on equal footing here at the ranch. “What about the g-g-g-g-g-goats?”

  Wyatt frowned at Christopher’s exaggerated stutter as he made fun of Johnny. Poor Johnny’s shoulders drooped and his bitter gaze sizzled the ground at his feet.

  “Knock it off, Christopher. You boys are done for the day. Go somewhere else and find something useful to do.”

  The young men didn’t have to be told twice before they scattered. They weren’t used to receiving a sudden chunk of free time.

  Only Johnny hung back and didn’t follow the other boys. His stutter made him the object of ridicule, but Johnny found solace reading books and working with the ranch animals, who accepted him just the way he was.

  Wyatt understood that, which was one of the main reasons he had taken Johnny under his wing, mentoring the boy with an eye to getting him into college and eventually, if Johnny excelled in his studies, veterinary school.

  As much as the teenagers mercilessly teased Johnny, that was nothing close to what would happen if they got a whiff of what was happening between Wyatt and Carolina now. There was no telling what kind of havoc the boys would wreak with that kind of information.

  It was time to be proactive, to deal with this situation with Carolina and Matty before anyone else found out about what had happened between them. They needed to get their stories straight and nip any rumors in the bud.

  Or did everyone already know?

  Was it possible that he was the only man in Haven who wasn’t aware he had a son?

  Fury and humiliation lapped like flames in his chest and he struggled to maintain his composure. He gritted his teeth and crossed his arms, digging his fingernails into his biceps and fighting for control of his temper.

  “I know you must be angry with me.” Carolina paused, her eyes uncertain. “Aren’t you?”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  Angry?

  That was the understatement of the century. He was mad enough to want to put his fist through a brick wall, just to try to transfer some of the pain in his chest to his hand. He felt like he was about to explode.